LLtG: God Of War 2 Picture

[Overkill was lead, by sev, into a quaint little room with white colored walls, a work bench with a swivel chair, a television, a closet, and a bed in the right corner]

Sev: ”These will be your living quarters for the time being.”

Overkill: “It’s nice.”

Sev: “I’ll let you get accuainted. (leaves)”

[Overkill slumped down on the swivel chair and let out a long and exasperated sigh.This was a very eventful day for him.He was forcefully moved from his home, learned that PlayStation characters are actually real, and talked with one of his favorite characters of all time.Yeah, he’s exasted]

Overkill: “Well, I have nothing else better to do. (pulled out his pen and notepad)”

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Here’s a tip for any game development studio who might be reading this: never bring a decapitated goat to your press event.You’d be surprised how the British government would react.

Hello and welcome to Long Live the game with Overkill_0526.Well it’s time to go back to violence and gore as we revisit God of War with its sequel, God of War 2.

Now this is not just some really great PS2 game, it is THE PS2 game.This game is recognized as one of the best PS2 games of all time; if not, the best (running in close with Grand Theft Auto 3).Released back in 2007, this game was like the “closing song” of the PS2’s era. I really want to do this game justice, and just in time for Halloween.So now let’s get in touch with our more vengeful side once again, this is God of War 2.

The game starts off after a certain amount of time has passed since the events of the first God of War game; Ares is dead and Kratos has taken up the mantel as the new God of War, now wearing some really cool armor.However he is still haunted by visions of his past, visions of the family that he murdered.How is he still haunted by nightmares even though Athena said implicitly in the first game that ten years of servitude would end his nightmares?She lied of course.She lied to him for ten years then she turned him into a god where he’ll forever live with his guilt because he will live for eternity.

Kratos has been living live on Olympus, but hasn’t really gotten along with the other residents up in the giant mountain.All those years of being a god has turned his sorrow into hated and resentment towards the Gods.He’s spent most of his time as the God of War watching over his Spartan brothers and helping them conquer Greece.Yeah, nice job making a Spartan the new God of War Athena.

Speaking of Athena, she warns Kratos to stop his conquest otherwise she can’t protect him from the wrath of Olympus.Well Athena, this wouldn’t be happening if you didn’t lie to him for ten years, now wouldn’t it?Kratos ignores her and joins his fellow Spartans in an assault on the port city of Rhodes, now in his giant god size, prepared to tear the city asunder.However an eagle comes into the fray and saps away most of Kratos’ Godly powers, returning him to normal size, yet he’s still capable of killing the crap out of a bunch of Rhode soldiers so he still has a fraction of God-like powers.

However, being sapped of a fraction of his power is the least of his worries; as the eagle zaps an enormous, golden statue of, I think, Helios in the center of the port and brings it to live.The unintentionally named “Colossus of Rhodes” plows through the city to smash Kratos.Now Kratos must fight off the giant statue.Yes, that’s right; the first thing you do in this game is fight a giant statue.If you did not stop reading this to Google search this game already, I’m going to be really surprised.

Kratos manages to weaken it, and by weaken I mean it tears off one its hands plus stab its eyes a few times (and look badass doing it), but it isn’t enough.Zeus contacts Kratos, the latter of whom initially refuses his help, and offers him the weapon that ended the Great War between Titans and Gods, the Blade of Olympus.Kratos reaches the Blade and he charges it, not realizing the cost he made.Kratos manages to get inside of the colossus and destroy it from within.He manages to get out just before the destruction, but the statue lands one final hit on Kratos by smashing its remaining hand on him before it falls and dies, making the Blade of Olympus fall out of Kratos’ hands.

Now surely a giant hand wouldn’t affect a Godly being, right?

Of course it wouldn’t, but Kratos is no longer a Godly being; he used up all of his God powers to charge the Blade of Olympus.So since Kratos is a mortal once again, the giant hand did some serious damage to him, breaking apart his armor (reverting him to his original look in God of War 1), he’s pretty much almost dead.His fellow Spartans are shocked to see their god falter like this but they have soldiers to fight and a city to sack so they don’t dwell on it for so long.

The only hope for Kratos is the Blade of Olympus which was twenty feet away from him.He slowly limps his way towards it, but the eagle that caused all this appears and reveals itself to be the King of Olympus himself, Zeus.Zeus orchestrated the whole thing so Kratos would turn mortal once again and become easily killable.Kratos tries to fight back but Zeus easily overpowers him and drives the Blade of Olympus into his chest.Why did Zeus do this I (don’t) hearyour asking; Zeus is afraid that Kratos will overthrow him and rule the world just like Zeus did with his father Cronos.

Zeus put some metaphorical salt on Kratios’ literal wound and uses the Blade’s power to wipe outg the Spartan army in Rhodes.In his final breath, in this life, Kratos swears vengeance upon Zeus for his betrayal.

The arms of Hades then come out of the ground to take their prize and Kratos is on his way to the underworld.Luckily though, he is contacted, telepathically, by the exiled titan Gaia who tells him that he can’t just give up when Zeus is still laughing at him.She tells Kratos that he’s a Spartan, and if the movie 300 taught us anything, it’s that Spartans don’t take crap from anyone.

With reinvigorated motivation, Kratos takes out his swords and starts swiping away the arms of Hades and he climbs his way out of the underworld and back to the land of the living.He wants to get revenge against Zeus but he cannot return to Mount Olympus.However Gaia has an alternative solution, go to the Island where the Sisters of Fate are, so you can take control of your thread and go back in time to the moment of Zeus’ betrayal and then kick his ass.It sounds convoluted, I know, but the game plays just so awesomely.

The gameplay is almost relatively unchanged for the most part, Kratos no longer wields the Blades of Chaos but he has a suitable replacement (that pretty much works exactly the same), the Blades of Athena.Like the last game you can dodge, block, and pull off some quick and brutal combo attacks against underworld escape convicts and almost every monster you can think of from Greek Mythology; Minotaur’s, Centaurs, Gorgons, Harpies, Cyclopes’, Satyrs, Sirens, and even Griffins.

There are also a new collection of weapons you can collect such as the Barbarian Hammer, an enormous weapon with a hammer head with spikes at the end which deals high amounts of damage, but it’s slow as molasses.Another note I need to make about the Hammer is that you can’t dodge with it, which is a pretty big disadvantage considering a lot of your enemies are pretty fast.Another new Weapon is the Spear of Destiny, a spear with crystal tips which is useful for making enemies fly in the air.Near the end of the game you reclaim the Blade of Olympus which becomes a weapon in you inventory.Using this weapon is strait forward; kill the living crap out of anything that is near you.

Quick time event Fatalities still play a big part in the combat system.Most of the enemies in the game, when damaged enough, have a giant circle appear above their heads which signals when you can activeate the Quick Time Fatality (that’s a term now).

Magic returns in this game with some even more brutal spells than before; there’s Typhon’s Bane, a magical bow that shoots quick bursts of wind, Cronos’ Rage, an electrical attack that shocks enemies with an orb of lightning, The Head of Euryale, the same thing as Medusa’s Gaze from the first game, and Atlas Quake, a badass ground pound where you make rocks crash into enemies.You also get an ability called the Rage of the Titans, a meter that fills up allowing you to go completely ape shit on everything, its badass.

Like the last game you can upgrade your weapons and magic with the unknown power of the red orbs.Where did these mystical objects come from?

Who cares?They make you even more badass and that’s good enough for me.Upgrading your weapons allows you to unlock more combos that you can use and they are crazy as hell; same thing goes for magic.If you invest enough orbs into Typhon’s Bane you get this ability where you can launch a bunch of mini-tornadoes in all different kinds of directions, and if you invest enough into Atlas Quack, you can continually punch the ground and cause rocks to fly all over the place; really useful for crowd control.

There’s also this really cool trinket you get where, in proximity to a glowing green gem, allows you to slow down time; which is really essential in a lot of puzzle solving.

That’s another thing I need to touch on, the puzzles in this game are a lot better and more intricate than in God of War 1; for example, there’s this one area where you need to guide a beam of light to melt the ice blocking your way to the next area.There is also this other room where this one guy jumps off a cliff, but you needed him to translate a book that, when read, will unlock the way to the sisters; and there’s this portal to the left that goes back in time before the guy jumps so you can use the time slowing trinket and grab him before he jumps. Although the puzzles do lead to some inconsistencies, some of the puzzles make you go through hoops just to unlock a gate, a freaking gate!Kratos can tear off the eye of a Cyclopes, I’m pretty sure he can bash down a gate.Why can’t he just bash down the gate?I don’t know.

The game is linear, there’s no denying that, but it knows what it is.It’s not overly complicated; it just lets you live your dream of being a badass Greek warrior and allowing you to kill as many monsters as you possibly can.

Another thing I want to make note of are the boss battles.In the first game you had only three boss battles; The Hydra, a giant, stem powered Minotaur, and Ares.That’s not a lot of variety or quantity in that sense.Luckily, God of War 2 is just jam pack with a bunch of boss battles, about four times as many bosses as the original.You face off against mythological Greek heroes like Theseus and Perseus, as well as many other ancient Monsters from Greek literature; examples include the Kraken an alpha Cerberus dog, and Euryale (the sister to Medusa); and if you recall from the first God of War game, Kratos easily killed Medusa and used her head as a weapon, so as you can imagine her sister would not be too happy about it.My only gripe about the boss battles is that when they end with a Quick Time Fatality, they just sort of ends without time to really soak in how really cool it was; never giving you a true feeling of accomplishment.That doesn’t change the fact that the game is great but it’s a real nitpick.

I believe I’ve said all that I want to say about the badassery that is God of war 2.All the multitude of badass hack and slash coupled with insanely awesome situations makes for a badass game with a badass character that is remembered for how badass it was.